Harvey Milk Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
Washington, DC – Jennifer Vanesco of 365gay.com reports that Harvey Milk, slain San Francisco City Supervisor, will be among 16 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom on August 12, according to the White House. Milk, gay human rights icon, was shot to death by disgruntled former city supervisor Dan White along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone on November 27, 1978. Milk will be recognized along with Billie Jean King, lesbian tennis great, and a stellar list of others whom the White House calls “agents of change”: Nancy Goodman Brinker, the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s leading breast cancer awareness organization; Stephen Hawking, the internationally-recognized theoretical physicist; Sen. Edward M. Kennedy; Desmund Tutu; Chita Rivera; Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland; and Sidney Poitier. Harvey Milk’s profile has risen steadily in the nation since the release of the major motion picture, Milk, directed by gay film maker Gus Van Zandt, and written by gay screen play author Dustin Lance Black. The timing of the film’s release, during the heat of the marriage equality battle in California over Proposition 8, introduced Milk to a whole new generation of emerging LGBT human rights 
advocates. Milk’s refusal to “blend in,” his demand that gay people come out openly as a tool of social change, and his willingness to hold accommodationist gay and lesbian leaders as well as straight lawmakers accountable to the gay liberation movement has inspired street activism today on a scale not seen since the 1980s protests over the AIDS crisis during the Reagan Administration. Now, Cleve Jones, a close associate of Milk’s who is also portrayed in the film, is organizing a national LGBT march on Washington, set for October 10-11, 2009, the first major queer march on the nation’s capitol since 1993. The Presidential Medal of Freedom, along with the Congressional Gold Medal, are the highest awards that may be given to a civilian in the United States of America. It is awarded to persons who in the estimation of the President have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” Milk will be the first victim of an anti-LGBT hate crime murder to be awarded this honor, a significant gesture on President Obama’s part as the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act moves toward enactment into law this fall.
Charlie Howard Remembered on the 25th Anniversary of His Murder
Charles O. "Charlie" Howard's High School Annual Picture
Charles O. “Charlie” Howard, thrown off a downtown Bangor bridge and drowned in 1984 by young hoodlums intent on terrorizing a gay person, is being remembered all week in Maine with lectures, events, and church services. After 25 years, a monument to him is finally in place near the State Street Bridge beneath which he died. His death was terrifying and hard. According to the autopsy report revealed at the trial of his murderers, he died of a combination of asphyxia from drowning, and from a severe attack of asthma. Professor Marvin Ellison of Bangor Theological Seminary remembers how his killers were lauded as celebrities when the news got out. Young toughs rode through the streets of Bangor, spewing anti-gay hate speech and brandishing shotguns. Even so-called “decent people” adopted a wait-and-see attitude that masked their private belief that somehow the flaming gay boy with the man bag and the painted nails got what was coming to him. The only religious groups in town who spoke out against the hatred were the Unitarian Universalists and the Jews. It is hard to remember these things, hard on the self-image of a proud city. But it has to be done, lest something like this happens again, and Charlie will have died in vain. As Professor Ellison said recently to the Bangor Daily News,
“Now years later, it’s a healthy sign that many more people register embarrassment, outrage and, yes, even shame that such an event happened in their city, their state and their country. For those of us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, we’ve learned the value of claiming the goodness of our lives and the healing power of pride. We’ve come to realize that we can honor Charlie Howard and others who have lost their lives by living our lives openly with self-respect and with determination to make the world safer for difference.”
Finally, in 2009, Maine has finally recognized same-sex marriage. Many see this as a vindication in some small way of the pain and suffering of a young gay man ‘way back in the Reagan Era.
Rest in peace, Charlie.
Anti-LGBT Hate Crimes the Highest Since 1999
Anti-LGBT violence is up 28% in one year
As Stonewall 40 approaches next week, a New York-based coalition of anti-violence programs reports that bias crimes against LGBT people rose 28% from 2007 to 2008. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) confirms the grim trend Unfinished Lives has been reporting for months: hate crimes against members of the sexual minority are not only higher than at any time in a decade, but the degree of brutality in the execution of these crimes has also intensified. Marcus Franklin of the Associated Press notes for the Huffington Post that the 29 confirmed bias-related murders of queer folk in 2008 reported by the NCAVP matches the number of similar killings it registered in its 1999 report. The Unfinished Lives Project has noted dramatic increases in anti-LGBT murders and assaults since the latter part of 2008 in California, Michigan, Minnesota, and Tennessee, and has highlighted the extreme savagery of these attacks as in the case of 45 stab wounds in U.S. Army veteran Michael Scott Goucher’s murder in East Stroudsburg, PA, and Duanna Johnson’s shooting death in Memphis, TN. The Huffpost article issued today quotes Sharon Stapel, executive director of the New York Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, which co-ordinates the NCAVP nationally with pointing to an increase of violence during the presidential campaign last fall, as well as ominous increases during the high-profile national debates over same-sex marriage, the possible passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and the proposed repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT). ”The more visibility there is the more likely we’re going to see backlash, and that’s exactly what we see here,” Stapel said. Since the NCAVP reports anti-Transgender hate crimes in distinction from the annual FBI’s hate crimes report that does not, Stapel is able to reference a more accurate picture of the landscape of peril in which LGBT Americans find themselves. Even so, organizations from only 25 of the 50 states report to the NCAVP, indicating that the
Duanna Johnson, Transwoman, murdered in Memphis
actual number of bias-related hate crimes against LGBT people may be much higher. Additional factors arguing for higher numbers of these crimes than are reported by either the NCAVP or the FBI are the stigma and despair often associated with violent crimes against queer women and men. Local law enforcement agencies tend to skew their investigations away from anti-gay or transgender motives as a reflection of the bias rampant in their home locales. Victims often fear exposure and media scrutiny for themselves and their loved ones, and therefore do not report crimes against their persons. LGBT victims are often discredited as sources of reliable information and are routinely blamed somehow for their own misfortune. Finally, as the Unfinished Lives Project has noted in repeated instances, American heterosexism and homophobia have created a climate for LGBT people such that their lives and deaths are valued less than those of other people, causing reports of attacks and murders against them to be far less likely to gain attention.
The high-profile events surrounding Pride 2009 will be a tempting target for hate groups around the country. At no time since the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998 has the public presence of LGBT people and their allies been more significant than this season.
Hate Crimes Victims Remembered at Dallas Day of Decision Protest
Hundreds gathered to hear speakers call for protests in the streets to show the determination of the LGBT community to have equal rights. The Dallas gayborhood rang with with voices of protesters in the largest street demonstration in years along Oaklawn and Cedar Springs. Blake Wilkinson of Queer LiberAction named Matthew Shepard whose death 10 years ago has not yet been vindicated by federal hate crimes legislation. He urged protesters to get angry that LGBT advocacy for hate crimes victims is so ineffective that a decade out from the Shepard murder, the queer community still does not have laws protecting LGBT people from being bashed and killed. Then Wilkinson called on the crowd to channel that anger into effective local, state and national action, starting in the streets, with gay folk taking their message of equality to the people.
The large crowd moved up Cedar Springs Road to TMC, The Mining Company, a popular gay bar on the strip with a large, street side patio, where the rally heard a number of powerful speeches protesting “separate but equal,” second-class status for LGBT Americans.
Dallas Queer LiberAction protest at the Legacy of Love column (Dallas Voice photo)
Gay Man Gunned Down in His Florida Driveway
Mark Scott Harriss, 30, looked forward to moving to Canada to get married to his fiancé, Ross Salvosa. Instead, he was shot to death around 8:30 pm in his Delray Beach, Florida driveway on Monday, May 11, 2009. Was it a hate crime? He had multiple gunshot wounds, and there was no evidence of robbery, according to investigators. Though authorities have not yet made the determination that his murder was a hate crime, friends of Harriss think it was likely. Professor Earl Fox from the University of Miami School of Medicine knew him well, and the neighborhood where he lived. Fox noted to the Palm Beach Post that another friend of his who lives in the same area as Harriss had a Nazi swastika painted on her car earlier this year because she is Jewish. ”If somebody is shot multiple times and nobody takes anything, that is just strange,” Fox told reporters.
Police told WPBF television, an ABC affiliate, that Harris was shot 12 times at close range in a manner resembling an “assassination.” Homophobia is under consideration as a motive for the murder, officers said.
Harriss grew up in Fredericksburg, Texas, in the Hill Country. He was an enthusiastic water skier, and loved gardening, according to his high school classmate, Theresa Valenzuela, of Austin. He had moved to Florida in 2007 to take a job with Best Western Motels. Salvosa, a classical piano student, lived with him until his student visa expired, at which time he returned to his native home in Vancouver, British Columbia. Harriss was tying up loose ends as quickly as he could in Delray Beach, so that he could find a job in Canada, go to live there in early summer, and marry his beloved.
Now Salvosa is returning to Florida to mourn Harriss and to oversee his memorial service. Harriss wished to be cremated, and to have his ashes interred back in New Braunfels, Texas, a city between Austin and San Antonio.
Investigations into Harriss’ savage murder continue, and the Delray Police Department vow to follow all leads until the tragic mystery of this killing is resolved.
California Senate Approves “Harvey Milk Day,” May 22
By a bipartisan vote of 24-14, the California Senate has approved May 22 as Harvey Milk Day, according to Advocate.Com. Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the United States, was slain on November 27, 1978 by jealous San Francisco City Supervisor, Dan White, along with Mayor George Moscone. Milk’s murder rocked the gay rights world, and secured a martyr’s respect for the affable politician whose advice to all LGBT activists was “You gotta give ‘em hope!” Milk would have been 79 this coming May 22, the choice of his birthday a deliberate effort to preserve his story and legacy for generations to come.
Harvey Milk Day will be a “Day of Significance” throughout the Golden State. The designation differs from a state holiday in that state employees will not be given the day off, and state offices will not close. Nonetheless, the action of the state Senate is unprecedented in recognizing the importance of Milk’s contribution to the struggle for human rights in general, and for LGBT rights in particular. In view of the controversy surrounding same-sex marriage and Proposition 8, this first annual commemoration becomes even more timely.
Among those testifying in favor of the Harvey Milk Bill was Dustin Lance Black, who received an Academy Award for his screenplay of the film Milk, starring Sean Penn in the title role. Black expressed his debt to Harvey Milk who kindled hope in him as a Mormon boy in Texas who was isolated and hedged in by anti-gay sentiment. The sole Republican to join the Senate’s 23 Democrats to vote for the creation of Harvey Milk Day, Senator Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, credited Black’s testimony before the Senate Education Committee with causing him to flip his vote from “no” to “yes.” “I rarely get swayed by testimony,” Maldonado said.
Anti-LGBT Hate Crimes in California Increase Alarmingly
Ventura County Star Editorial Cartoon on Prop 8
365gay reports a 300% increase in homophobic hate crimes in Santa Clara County, California, just south of San Francisco. Two years ago, 15% of hate crimes were designated as anti-LGBT in nature. Last year’s statistics showed a dramatic increase to 56% of all hate crimes in the county.
An official for the District Attorney’s Office said to reporters for the Mercury News, “Marriage equality and Proposition 8 have been in the news, and we have seen an increase of gay bashing.” Stats for the rest of California’s counties will be released in the Attorney General’s annual report on hate crimes, due out in July.
In November, the “Yes on 8” campaign prevailed at the polls, 52% to 48%. The California Supreme Court has heard arguments on both sides of the question concerning a repeal of Proposition 8 on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. Also at stake are the 18,000 same-sex marriages carried already in the state. The judges have 90 days to issue a ruling.
In the meantime, the potential voting public in the Golden State remains sharply divided over the issue of same-sex marriage. A public opinion poll shows that 47% would now vote to maintain the ban. 48% report that they would vote to repeal Proposition 8.
Meanwhile, the bashings continue at a breathtaking rate. Stay tuned.
The Year in Review
As 2008 draws to a close, hate crime statistics from 2007 are finally coming into clearer focus. Both the FBI and various anti-violence programs are verifying hate crime increases perpetrated against the LGBT community-at-large. Sadly, the findings from 2007 have been corroborated by ongoing violent acts in 2008.
FBI Hate Crimes Statistics for 2007: Sexual-orientation bias related crimes are up 18%.* National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs disputes these statistics, claiming a 24% increase, at least. The official report says that in 2007, law enforcement agencies reported 1,460 hate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias to the FBI. Of these offenses:
- 59.2 percent were classified as anti-male homosexual bias.
- 24.8 percent were reported as anti-homosexual bias.
- 12.6 percent were prompted by an anti-female homosexual bias.
- 1.8 percent were the result of an anti-heterosexual bias.
- 1.6 percent were classified as anti-bisexual bias.
(*Note: Anti-transgender incidents are not reported in these statistics, since law-enforcement is not required by law to report them.)
Clarence Patton, Executive Director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (NYAVP), noted the “dramatic increase in the number of anti-lesbian, gay and bisexual incidents reported—though the overall number of reports captured by the FBI rose only 8%, the number of reports impacting our communities rose at more than twice that rate.”
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), a coalition of 30 member programs including the NYAVP, reported that gay bashing incidents actually rose 24% compared to 2006. 2007 also had the third-highest murder rate in a decade, more than doubling from 10 in 2006 to 21 in 2007.
Even these statistics hardly give the picture of the crisis of violence against LGBT people all across the United States. The true number of incidents perpetrated against queer folk is probably much higher, as Avy Skolnik, national programs co-ordinator of the NCAVP, reported:
“We know that the 2,430 people who called on our organizations in 2007 are only a small fraction of the actual number of LGBT people who experienced bias-motivated violence. Anecdotally, we constantly hear stories of LGBT people surviving abuse—sometimes multiple attacks per day when that violence comes from a fellow student, a neighbor, a co-worker, a landlord, or a boss.”
Richard Hernandez, butchered in his apartment bathroom
Dallas, Texas, boasting one of the largest LGBT populations in the country, saw LGBT people taking to the streets in protest of the alarming number of attacks. Two high-profile murders and several brutal assaults, including the “Silence of the Lambs style” dismemberment of gay man, Richard Hernandez, a 34-year-old citizen of Dallas, sparked street protests from United Community Against Gay Hate Crime to draw the attention of the public to the plight of LGBT citizens.
Gay Apartheid
Behind each number in these statistics are real people: victims, family, friends, bereaved lovers. This is the human cost of Gay Apartheid. The real target of these atrocities, however, is the idea of America, a country where all people may pursue their lives without fear of intimidation or violence. Until American laws and the attitudes behind them change to reflect the inclusion of all people in the constitutional rights and privileges afforded some, then this nation must be brought to face so-called “legal” acts of apartheid against the LGBT community.
Forty years after the Stonewall Uprising in New York, universally recognized as the birth of the LGBT Rights Movement, 29 states have constitutional amendments passed for the sole purpose of depriving LGBT citizens the same rights as heterosexuals. States have enacted bans against gay parenting and adoption. Not only has the Federal Government passed the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA), and instituted the oppressive “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy for the U.S. Military, but 15 states have barred same-sex marriage, and 18 states have legislation limiting domestic partnerships and civil unions. The passage of Proposition 8 in California, repealing the right to marry given to its citizens earlier in the year, is just the latest act of apartheid in this country. Violence is following the law, not the other way around.
The definition of Apartheid is “a system of laws applied to one category of citizens in order to isolate them and keep them from having privileges and opportunities given to all others,” according to elder LGBT statesman, Herb Hamsher, writing for the Huffington Post. The Unfinished Lives Project cannot agree with Hamsher more when he says, “Our role is to hold a mirror up to the country and no longer allow it to shift the focus away from what we have become. We have become a nation increasingly devoted to an encroaching system of apartheid for a designated category of its citizens.”
When the tyranny of the majority goes unchecked, and the apartheid system apes the bias against LGBT people in communities and religious institutions, the American ideal of the protection of the minority from the excesses of their neighbors is exposed as a fantasy. An Apartheid America is not the nation of the free or the brave. Hate Crime murders and other violent crimes against LGBT people are hundreds and thousands of mirrors held up to the nation. We must continue to stand up, hold up these brutally frank mirrors to the disfigurement of America until our fellow citizens repudiate the travesty of the law these hate crime statistics represent.
About
If you are a first-time visitor to the Unfinished Lives Project website, we invite you to read A Welcome Message introducing you to our project. We are truly grateful for your visit.
The Unfinished Lives Project website is a place of public discourse which remembers and honors LGBT hate crime victims, while also revealing the reality of unseen violence perpetrated against people whose only “offense” is their sexual orientation. LGBT people in the United States are suffering a slow-rolling holocaust of terror and murder all across the country. Every locale and demographic of society are affected: First Nations, Anglo, Black, Latino and Latina, South and Southeast Asian, Transgender, Gay men, Lesbians, disabled, young, and mature. Homophobia has a long, crooked arm, and it is reaching out to snatch the life away from women and men whose tragic stories are under-reported to begin with, and whose memories are swiftly forgotten.
The horror of these killings transcends the shock and bereavement of loved ones and friends. These are not typical homicides; they are not killings for money or drugs, incidents of domestic strife, or crimes of passion. The vicious nature of hate crimes against LGBT persons is extremely brutal, grotesquely violent, and egregiously hateful.
Each murder serves the LGBT population as a sobering warning about the actual level of danger in our communities. The message these killings send is that freedom and open life for LGBT people is a cruel dream.
Our Project Director
Stephen V. Sprinkle is Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry, and Associate Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas, a post he has held since 1994. An ordained Baptist minister, he is the first open and out Gay scholar in the history of the Divinity School, and the first open and out LGBT person to be tenured there. Read More…
Recent Social Justice Advocacy Activity By Dr. Sprinkle
Summer 2009 – Dr. Sprinkle responded to the Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Raid on the Rainbow Lounge, Fort Worth’s newest gay bar, on June 28, 2009, the exact 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Dr. Sprinkle was invited to speak at three protest events sponsored by Queer LiberAction of Dallas. Here, he is keynoting the Rainbow Lounge Protest at the Tarrant County Courthouse on July 12, 2009. Read More…
Contact Us
Communicate with the Unfinished Lives project team: UnfinishedLives@yahoo.com
Schedule a Presentation
Dr. Sprinkle will gladly present his acclaimed presentation to your organization. To arrange an Unfinished Lives presentation for your organization or group, please contact us.
Dr. Sprinkle has given his Unfinished Lives presentation to these and other community groups and organizations. Read More…
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Where are our readers?
Box Turtle Bulletin- Same-Sex Marriage now legal in Buenos Aires
- Sunday Driver: New York to DC and Back Again
- Anglican Communion’s Tangled Connections To Uganda’s Anti-Gay Pogrom
- Will LDS’s Incremental Approach To LGBT Issues Someday Lead To Bigger Changes?
- Another Reason To Rejoice
- Carrie Prejean’s Closeup
- Indonesian Moderate Muslims Accept Gays
- Same-Sex Marriage in Argentina
- Rhode Island Governor Says He’s Open To Domestic Partnership Law
- Anti-gay Purdue library prof’s blogging gets press attention
- The LGBT Hate Crimes Project
- HRC Back Story
- Addressing Hate Crimes in Washington, DC
- National Adoption Month Interview: Adoption Benefits
- BREAKING: Committee to hold vote on ENDA
- HRC Launches New HBCU Website, Resources
- National Adoption Month: Making Adoptions Affordable
- BREAKING: LDS church supports inclusive anti-discrimination law
- A Proud Cadre
- National Adoption Month: Finding a Friendly Agency
- LGBT Visibility in the 2010 Census
- New York Marriage Vote Update
- The Advocate: Daily News
- Conservatives Use Marriage Litmus Test
- Rosie: Kelli Moved Out Two Years Ago
- Hochberg: "Sequencing" Key to LGBT Progress
- Carrie Prejean Has Eight Sex Tapes
- Ian McKellan Talks Gay Rights and Religion
- Hunks Drop Their Lederhosen for Charity
- Ohio Flash Mob for Gay Marriage
- Historic Gay Bar on the Brink of Closing?
- Rev. Ted's OK With Gays
- Partner Benefits Hearing Next Wed
- Dallas Voice: Instant Tea
- UPDATE: Motorist fled scene after damaging Legacy of Love Monument
- Ministers attack Parker, warning of ‘gay takeover’ of Houston city hall
- Motorist plows through Oak Lawn Triangle, damaging Legacy of Love Monument
- ‘Jack E. Jett’ lineup this weekend
- A taste of The Hidden Cameras and Gentleman Reg before tonight’s show at Hailey’s
- South Carolina stopped from pushing one religion
- ‘You’ll be seeing a lot of me’
- Catholic Archdiocese threatens to end services if D.C. marriage bill passes
- Dallas moves up in gay tourism rankings
- Remington opens art show tonight
Special Comment on the Proposition 8 Protest Movement: “Now is Our Time”
by Stephen V. Sprinkle
One step too far: that is the step opponents of civil rights for LGBT people, the LDS Church and the Knights of Columbus, took in their all-out effort to repeal same-sex marriage in California. I do not contest the freedom of church organizations to voice their opinions about court decisions in America. But the desperate over-reach of Mormons and Roman Catholics to strip same-sex couples of the right of civil marriage the California Supreme Court had vouchsafed to them has awakened millions of LGBT people and allies to the power of a movement whose time has come. Pouring millions of church dollars and thousands of radio/TV advertisements into the struggle over Prop 8 has rebounded upon those who briefly celebrated beating back the high court’s decision on same-sex marriage. The agents of heterosexist theocracy may have won a single battle at the ballot box, but in doing so they have set in motion a war for public opinion they cannot win.
Our opponents managed one thing by their desperation and arrogance: they have galvanized the grassroots power of the millions of LGBT folk and allies who surged to the polls on November 4 to elect Barack Obama president. With the internet as the vehicle for equality, 300 protest events sprang up in less than twelve days. No other civil rights movement in American history has been launched in cyberspace before, and as the presidential campaign of 2008 demonstrated, the internet has vast potential to rally millions and to fund a national movement. As a witness to the No On 8 Protest at the Austin, Texas Town Hall, I can report the zeal and determination of 3,000 mostly first-time protesters to seize this time as our time, the long-deferred time for a true LGBT Civil Rights moment. As a marcher myself, I can testify to the thrill of taking it to the streets as a 50-something gay man in a new way. I was too closeted and too far removed from the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 to take to the streets then. But this is today, and Prop 8, no matter what LGBT people may privately think of marriage for ourselves, is a thumb in our eye. Myriads of young Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transgender people built up their electoral muscle in Obama Pride, and now are ready to infuse new life, energy and possibility into the struggle for sexual and gender expression equality. The rally organizers did a fine job at the Austin Town Hall Plaza for the thousands who came out. All the usual advocacy groups were there, lending leadership and direction to the surging crowds of neophytes straining at the bit to do their part for justice. But closing the proceedings and urging protesters to sign up on contact lists or to buy tee shirts could not shut off the electricity generated by restless youth. When a movement goes viral, it cannot be shut down with the flip of a switch.
Perhaps the organizers of the Austin No On 8 Protest tried to get a march permit, but couldn’t. Whatever the story, hundreds of fired up queers and allies took their signs and passion into the streets, and marched up to the Texas State Capital, where we demonstrated outside the gates in the shadow of the tallest governmental dome in America. “What do we want?” “Equality!” “When do we want it?” “Now!” ricocheted up and down Austin streets as dozens of cars and pickups sped by blaring horns and shouting encouragement. The citizens of Austin stepped back, some smiling, some scowling at the surging rainbow line marching up Congress Avenue. Two descriptors came to my mind as I marched along chanting with the others: Power and Peace. This was no flash-in-the pan afternoon protest, no lark by first-timers seeking to get their pictures in the paper. Others have seized their moments: the anti-war movement, African Americans, the Moral Majority, women. But this has the feel of our time, the time when the issue of same-sex wedlock changed from a political hot potato into a viral movement elevating marriage to the status of a civil right for all Americans.
There are serious problems to work out. Before the rift with people of color tears any further, African Americans and Latinas/Latinos must be appealed to directly. LGBT people and straight people of color have a stake in the fight for justice together, not apart, and LGBT people of color must lead white queer folk to avoid driving a wedge between natural allies and us. That is where LGBT people of faith and progressive religious leaders have a major role to play by giving a faith rationale for the marriage equality movement. One of the lessons of the defeat in California is that when church bigotry waves crosses and distorts the issues for the voting public, the most potent antidote is the public witness of queer and progressive faith leaders wearing all their ecclesiastical regalia. God must not be hijacked any longer by the radical right in the fight for equality. Further, from what I saw and heard, LGBT rallies need media savvy and speakers need coaching on how to call out the passion and motivation that will translate into effective action for change. It was clear that we haven’t learned how to do this ‘thing,’ yet. But we must learn how, and quickly, if we are to ride the tide of commitment building in our queer communities.
My work on LGBT hate crimes murder victims teaches me that our movement already has its martyrs. I cannot help thinking of Harvey Milk, wondering if after 30 years since his assassination in San Francisco we have finally become ready to realize his vision and to vindicate his death and the deaths of so many hundreds of others. As we march and protest, their stories can give us the drive to confront a society yet unwilling to see us as equals. Never again must LGBT people stay silent when some of us are killed for simply being who we are. And never again may we sit idle on the sidelines while others struggle to win our freedom and equality. I saw and felt a justice movement building in the capital of the Lone Star State this past Saturday. As one sign in the Austin No on 8 Protest proclaimed, “Our Love Will Outlast Their H8!” We who believe in justice cannot rest! We who believe in justice cannot rest until it comes!
Stephen V. Sprinkle
Director
The Unfinished Lives Project
November 20, 2008 Posted by unfinishedlives | California, Heterosexism and homophobia, Legislation, Marriage Equality, Politics, Protests and Demonstrations, Social Justice Advocacy, Special Comments, Texas, religious intolerance | | No Comments Yet